If you live in a much older home, you may have encountered some challenges to modern living. While older homes have their charms, these issues can be irksome over time. Here are three common problems with old homes and some solutions for dealing with them.
HVAC
If you live in a home built in the late 19th Century or very early 20th Century, your house may have been originally heated with a fireplace. If it's just a little newer, it may have central heat, but it's likely to be via radiator.
Radiant heat can be great, but it comes with one downfall: no ducts for summertime air conditioning. You have a couple of options here. You can install a new forced air heating system, which will allow you to also set up central air. This is quite costly, as it is a major renovation of every room in your home.
A less invasive and expensive solution may be to just live with the radiators for heat and install window air conditioners. You could also install a whole house fan, which would keep air moving and pull hot air up and out through the top of the house.
Water Softening
Water softeners have been around for well over 100 years. However, many water softening systems in old homes bypassed the kitchen, because it was believed unsoftened water tasted better.
While this isn't a big deal if you're only running water in your kitchen sink, it can be more of a problem if you have a dishwasher or refrigerator with a water dispenser. These appliances can get covered with lime scale very quickly and malfunction.
You have a number of options in this situation:
Wood Trim
If you do any renovations on an old home that involve doors or windows, you may have trouble matching the original trim, especially if you have trim like cove molding. This is a relatively easy but somewhat costly fix: find a custom mill to replicate the trim for you.
To ensure the best match to the old trim, bring in a piece of the original trim or a very clear photograph. If you get a good replica, no one will know where the old one ends and the new one begins.
Old homes are wonderful for their charm and history. If you find yourself with one of these problems, it's worth going the extra mile to fix it, so you can enjoy your home to its fullest.
Share13 February 2015
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